Kerry says will meet Lavrov on Syria

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) shakes hands with US Secretary of State John Kerry after their press conference in Moscow on July 15, 2016. (AFP Photo)

US Secretary of State John Kerry says he will meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov early next week to discuss Syria’s crisis.

He said that he would meet Lavrov on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Vientiane, Laos.

“I think our next meeting will be on the side of the meeting in Asia. I’ll see him in Asia,” he told reporters in Vienna, Austria on Friday.

Kerry said that he and Lavrov would discuss a US plan to increase Washington-Moscow military cooperation and intelligence sharing on Syria.

He defended the US plan, saying "the president of the United States has authorized and ordered this track."

At a news conference with Lavrov in Moscow last week, Kerry announced that Russia and the US had established a common understanding of required steps to bring peace back to Syria.

Now, President Barack Obama wants to see if Russia is ready to deliver on its promises it made last week, he said on Friday.

"It is the president’s desire to test whether or not the Russians are prepared to do what they said during our negotiations in Moscow that they will do," Kerry stated.

"We’re going to test this very carefully based not on trust, based on specific steps," Kerry said. "So far, it is showing a modicum of promise which, hopefully, we can complete."

The US top diplomat also said that he and Lavrov would talk on ways to solidify Syria truce.

The truce deal on Syria, which went into effect late February, excluded groups like Daesh and the al-Nusra Front that were officially blacklisted by UN Security Council as terrorists, while allowing humanitarian access to the war-torn parts of the country.

Russia launched an air campaign against Daesh and other terrorist groups last September upon a request by the Damascus government.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the conflict.